In small towns across America, manly men are customizing their jacked-up diesel trucks to intentionally emit giant plumes of toxic smoke every time they rev their engines. They call it “rollin’ coal,” and it’s something they do for fun.

An entire subculture has emerged on the Internet surrounding this soot-spewing pastime—where self-declared rednecks gather on Facebook pages (16,000 collective followers) Tumblers and Instagram (156,714 posts) to share photos and videos of their Dodge Rams and GM Silverados purposefully poisoning the sky. As one of their memes reads: “Roll, roll, rollin’ coal, let the hybrid see. A big black cloud. Exhaust that’s loud. Watch the city boy flee.”

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Aside from being macho, the rollin’ coal culture is also a renegade one. Kids make a point of blowing smoke back at pedestrians, in addition to cop cars and rice burners (Japanese-made sedans), which can make it dangerously difficult to see out of the windshield. Diesel soot can also be a great road rage weapon should some wimpy looking Honda Civic ever piss you off. “If someone makes you mad, you can just roll coal, and it makes you feel better sometimes,” says Ryan, a high school senior who works at the diesel garage with Robbie. “The other day I did it to this kid who was driving a Mustang with his windows down, and it was awesome.”

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This is another example of how these white males seething with resentment are actually willing mental slaves to the liberals in their heads. Everything they do is filtered through their imagined liberal (or cosmopolitan, sophisticated, “gay”) audience; they do not and cannot think or do anything for themselves. They live in constant thought and concern about what the Prius drivers think of them, far more than the Prius drivers us has myself ever think about them. And it’s ironic because they’re the ones doing actual harm.

It makes me of a picture of Take Your Gun to Home Depot Day. The looked like nothing more than insecure teen boys hanging out on the corner and desperately worried they don’t look cool.

Tristan

I knew a guy online who swore he once had a girlfriend whose dad would actually buy motor oil by the drumfull to pour out into ravines and creeks, because it would sure piss off some liberal somewhere. I don’t know if it’s true but I’d like to believe it is because it’s amazing.

Denverite

My grandfather was like this. When the county passed an ordinance requiring him to do extensive updates on his septic tank system, he responded by taking leaks in his backyard because they couldn’t tell him not to do that. (He also paid for the updates for my grandmother and number two.) He never owned a gun in his life until the Brady bill was passed, at which point he went out and bought three guns out of pure spite.

Crissa

I suppose he doesn’t know that spreading urine across the grass is actually a better way to dispose of it than a septic system? It’ll break into usable nitrogens faster with UV and oxygen exposure on a solid surface that the nitrogen fixing bacteria can live on.

Why wouldn’t anyone want to fix their septic? Do they like smelling shit?

Malaclypse

This is what scares me about the mandate on CFLs. You know the Jennies of the world are throwing them away and not disposing of them safely, because deliberatly destroying the water supply sure will show the libtards.

Consumer Unit 5012

I’ve said it before – if Obama really wants the Democrats to win in the next election, he needs to declare the last week in October National Not Setting Yourself On Fire Safety Awareness Week. The wingnuts will have a hard time voting from the burn ward.

Halloween Jack

There’s an old saying that Ronald Reagan didn’t spend a minute thinking about Margaret Thatcher for every hour that Thatcher spent thinking about Reagan. That’s always been true for conservatives obsessing over liberals.

Gabriel Ratchet

Well, to be fair, I don’t think Reagan spent a whole lot of time thinking about anything, particularly by his second term.

Patricia Kayden

The entire post made me laugh. So who are these hicks hurting by polluting their own neighborhoods? I don’t live in their hick town, so they’re not hurting this liberal.

They shouldn’t only “roll coal”. They should also smoke with their windows up and eat lots of road kill.

Idiots.

anonymous coward

So you have a private air supply that this foul toxic smoke isn’t allowed into? That must be nice. The rest of us live on earth.

tsam

There’s an easy way to get rid of all these smoky douchemobiles. Have black people start driving them.

Mike M.

But then, before long, white people will see black people driving them, declare it “cool” and start doing it and claim it as a discovery. Vicious cycle.

Autonomous Coward

That’s true, but the process of wussification that invariably goes with the Black Art -> White Pop process might limit the damage.

That kid in the corner

Those smokestacks will be spittin’ rainbow glitter by the time we urban sophisticates are done with it yaknowwhatimean?

tsam

Local law enforcement would suddenly get behind emission standards if black people were ‘rollin’ coal’. I don’t think there would be time for it to get co-opted by the wannabes.

AnonPhenom

As a city dwelling metrosexual athiest liberal male I just need to make it clear that my heart *bleeds* at the thought of people all over the world playing russian roulette while smoking massive quantities of chrystal meth. I just don’t think it’s very good for the environment. All my gay married friends agree. I just hope ‘rednecks’ don’t find out how we feel about this.

Jonestown

Don’t worry I read that Comrade Obama, working as always to protect us from ourselves for own good and the good of several endangered insect species beloved by us liberals, has decreed (by Executive Order) that smoking meth while playing russian roulette is now and forever illegal.

LtDan

Oh how clever wingnuts are getting. They are going to hunt you down and take away your fishing license, doncha know.

Tristan

“If someone makes you mad, you can just roll coal, and it makes you feel better sometimes”

Self-semi-awareness.

Joel H

Well, not quite a semi.

LtDan

You misspelled stupidity.

bob

Please don’t let them know that liberals had the government ban leaded gasoline because it is the Fountain of Youth – or else they will start drinking it and bathing it it like we do. At least they don’t read this blog so the secret is safe here.

Carl Muecke

Isn’t spewing vast clouds of diesel smoke into the atmosphere a fineable offense? I can believe these sad excuses for humanoids can drive past a cop and “roll coal” on him and not be pulled over and issued a ticket!

meander

If the truck with the diesel engine was manufactured in recent years (roughly 2007 and beyond, but there might be exceptions), the standard exhaust system includes a particulate filter that reduces the smoke emissions to nearly zero. Removal of that filter is a clear violation of the Clean Air Act (i.e., it’s “tampering” with the emission control system).

But I don’t know how that part of the Clean Air Act is enforced in each state. Conceivably, you’d be caught during a smog check, but a smart “coal roller” would re-install the filter before going to get the smog check. I don’t know if police have the ability to pull over a light-duty vehicle that has excess smoke emissions.

If it is a heavy duty truck, however, then there might be inspections at weigh stations and the possibility of fines for tampering with the emission control system.

Procopius

My memory isn’t all that reliable, and I haven’t been back to the states for 35 years, but when I was a kid outside Detroit there was a definite law against “excessive exhaust smoke.” It was enforced, too, although what was cool then was the loud mufflers. “Glasspaks,” if I recall right. Even straight pipes, but the cops would nail you for sure for those.

Halloween Jack

Lots of municipalities have ordinances against cars emitting smoke of any sort–I got a ticket back in the eighties when my car started leaking transmission fluid into the engine.

Nathanael

Those anti-smoke ordinances date back to the 19th century. (Often targeted against steam-powered cars.)

This “coal rolling” will get these dumbasses arrested in most parts of the country. Probably not in South Carolina (the only state actually mentioned in the article), though.

rapier

Boys will be boys. Don’t read too much into it. For boys the entire idea is to not take things seriously. The displays are outweighed by many orders of magnitude with the stupendous improvement in diesel emissions the last 20 years.

Looking at the big picture however, beyond the depredations of boys and the advance of technology, we’re screwed.

KmCO

Boys will be boys.

Worst sentiment ever.

A Guy

Probably the best sentiment ever, actually. I don’t endorse coal rolling but I sure as hell know bitching about it will amp up the appeal. Why are so many on both sides of the spectrum bent on wagging their fingers at people? That’s how I became a progressive in the first place, but now I see we’re just as bad as they are.

sharculese

Say what you will about progressives, at least we don’t go onto conservative blogs and lie about being conservatives in a facile and patently obvious attempt at muddying the waters.

Winsome Warrior

Boys will be boys.

That is an extremely dangerous way of excusing horrible behavior. It allows young men to bend and then literally break the law. At what point do you put your foot down?

g

Wow, that’s the conservative mind-set in one image, right there.

Josh G.

I think I saw one of these idiots a couple of days ago. Some guy was driving a Dodge Ram pickup with a “Cummins” logo pasted on the back. When he accelerated, it spewed thick black smoke from the massive exhaust pipe (definitely not stock). I and a few other drivers had to slow down for a bit because of reduced visibility. I haven’t seen any other road vehicle (even big rigs) put out this much visible pollution in a long time. At the time I thought it was a shame there were no cops around, since he should have been pulled over for violating emissions standards.

Michael C

When I was 12 we thought farting was pretty funny, too.

CSI

A hybrid car would use a lot of energy and resources to manufacture. And it still requires a lot of energy to run and maintain, perhaps not as much as a big pick up truck but still a lot. In the long run neither the hybrid car nor big pick up truck is sustainable.

The headline still says “Conserative” instead of “Conservative.” For the love of Marcuse, please fix this.

Anonymous

Conderpative.

LanceSteel

Someone needs to make a large filtration system that can attach to a hybrid or electric car that kicks-in when it detects high levels of air pollution. I would like to see the look on these coal roller’s faces if a “limp-wristed” Prius owner pulled up behind them and sucked up all that smoke.

Dice

Next up: a law suit claiming vile diesel-puke is free speech.

hybriddestruction

It is hilarious how ignorant people on this site really are. If you researched what you preach or bitch about you would realize that the smoke emitted from a diesel is a solid particle it falls to the ground it doesn’t go up into the atmosphere to cause so called “global warming.” which seems like some bs because here in the heart of Dixie there is still coldest days on record happening every winter. The whinny douchebags driving a Prius or a volt don’t realize that what it takes to dispose of one battery out of a hybrid car is worse for the environment than a diesel truck over its life span, which is idk a hundred times that of a hybrid battery. Being a diesel mechanic I work on the diesels that you whine about everyday. Do you whine when your shopping at whole foods? A diesel truck delivers that organic food you buy, not to mention every fast food chain anywhere receives their deliveries from a diesel truck. In the end because I could really care less about ignorant people that have nothing better to do than run their mouth on a website that they think no one who knows more will ever read so there is no chance of someone shutting them up. Stop before you post some one sided bullshit without fully researching what you are talking about. Stick to pencil pushing in an office and driving the smallest vehicle you can bc its more efficient and probably the least safe on the road. Maybe the smaller your car gets people who whine constantly will be slowly eliminated bc their car that is protecting the environment will not protect them as much as the earth.